Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport Leo Varadkar has welcomed the opening of the N22/N69 Tralee Bypass.

The 13.5km scheme consists of dual and single carriageway sections.

Work began on the scheme in 2011 and the budget was €97m.

Minister Varadkar said: "I am very pleased to see the official opening of the new N22/N69 Tralee Bypass. I recall visiting Tralee on a very wet day in August 2011 to turn the sod on this scheme. In economically straightened times when our national roads investment programme has had to be significantly scaled back, I am very pleased that this scheme has come to fruition."

The N22/N60 scheme is expected to improve access to Tralee Town while removing bypassing national traffic from the centre. A 14% reduction in accidents has also been predicted.

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Road users could expect to see an end-to-end reduction in journey times of 73%, in comparison with the previous route.

Minister Varadkar continued: "Separating local traffic from through traffic has been among the principal benefits of the development of the national roads network for the past number of years. Removing bottlenecks in our towns and cities not only brings benefits in terms of safety and journey times, it also reaps benefits for our economy. For example, by improving efficiency in goods movement, lowering overheads as a result of time saved and providing a welcome extra boost to competitiveness."

"In the year of The Gathering, this new Bypass will also play a key role in improving access to the major tourist attractions associated with County Kerry. Efficiencies in our road networks not only enhance access to attractions such as the Ring of Kerry and Dingle but they can also positively impact on visitor's experience of Ireland. Already this year, the CSO has reported a 5.4% increase in overseas visitors to Ireland in the first six months of 2013. Hopefully this trend will continue and this new road will help to make Kerry's attractions more popular than ever."

(IT/JP)